Community Maps Working Group - Neighborhood Events and Destinations

Community Maps Working Group

Join us if you are interested in contributing ideas and/or technical expertise to the design and creation of a collaborative map that provides residents with an instant snapshot of neighborhood events and destinations.  

We envision a searchable map that captures local, underground events and places not found in more regional maps and events calendars.  The map will serve as a visual compilation of neighborhood-specific information shared via the online community forums, public calendars, and directly via the map  (eg. game night at the coffee house, a backyard puppet show, community meetings, volunteer park clean up, free libraries, CSA drop off locations, etc.). 

Our hope is the map will illustrate the richness of stuff going on in the community and encourage more gatherings and participation. While the Union Park District Council neighborhoods in St. Paul are our pilot area, the goal is to build something that can easily be extended to other areas.

Key features of the application will include:

1. Optimized for mobile devices
2.  What’s near me? search option
3.  Multi-modal directions
4. Integrates iCalendar feeds from numerous sources (eg. libraries, community centers, meetups, google calendar, etc)
5. Toggle between map view and calendar view
6. Custom PDF maps – To reach more residents, we need a print version of the map as well.  We'll set up an option to allow anyone to generate and print a tourist style map of events and/or destinations, for posting in public places.  

This working group, hosted by greeninfo.org and e-democracy.org, openly invites everyone interested in neighborhood maps to join. The working group is led by Jennifer Strahan.